Chase Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection Vegas – Pay You in Credits!
The other day I wrote about the great news when it comes to Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts in Las Vegas. As a quick reminder, that program gives a $100+ property credit, room upgrade, breakfast and other perks when you book the room through them, but in the past year it has been sort of devalued. That was until Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas saved the day with the introduction of a higher $125 credit that can be used for food & beverage as well! But Amex FHR isn’t the only game in town.
Chase Luxury Hotel Collection
The Chase Luxury Hotel Collection is Chase’s answer to Amex FHR, but in some cases it can be better. The program works much like Amex FHR where you get a free upgrade, property credit, breakfast and a couple of other perks, but it isn’t completely the same and dare I say sometimes is even better.
Chase LHRC Unique Options
To start, Chase LHRC has a number of options you won’t find on Amex. These include Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand and Park MGM. Out of those 3 hotels the cheapest are the MGM Grand and Park MGM, however MGM Grand comes with a $100 per stay credit while Park MGM only gets $50.
Chase Will Pay You to Stay at MGM Grand
Even though we are going to book our stay through Chase Luxury Hotel Collection, I always start at the good old Mlife website to view their rate calendar. Chase will have slightly higher rates because you are getting all of the perks, but viewing this calendar will show you which dates are overall the cheapest. This takes some of the guessing out of it for when you visit the Chase website.
Booking MGM Grand on Chase Luxury Hotels & Resorts Collection
To test this scenario out, I chose December 18, 2019 as the date for my example given it is at the lowest rate on the calendar above. While the rate is $58++ on the Mlife website for me as a Gold member, the rate is $75 from Chase. Don’t worry though. You want to pay a little bit more, because you get all of this:
- $100 food & beverage credit
- $50 breakfast credit
- One category room upgrade
- Early check-in and late check-out
In Vegas even check-in/out benefits have value given the fact there is a fee for everything, but when determining our cost, we’ll only assign values to perks that have a monetary value. Between the room credit and breakfast this Chase Luxury Hotel Collection offer for MGM Grand gives us $150 in credit per night.
Final Cost of the Room
This is Vegas of course which means somewhat high room taxes plus resort fees. So the room rate is $75, but what is the final out the door number? Once we factor in the taxes and that darn $40+ resort fee the final out the door price is just about $130. So it works out something like this.
- Pay $130 in cash
- Get one night in a 4 star hotel plus $150 in credit plus other perks
Keep The Party Going – More Than One Night?
What if you wanted to do this for more than one night? Why not switch! For example, the next night the Mandalay Bay costs $79++ which is about $135 all-in. You would get another $150 in credits. You could also look at the Delano for about $20-$30 more per night or the Park MGM with a $50 credit for slightly less. There are a lot of options.
And don’t forget “two player mode”. If you are married or traveling with someone else you can each check-in and receive benefits. It could go something like this:
- Day 1: MGM Grand Person 1
- Day 2: MGM Grand Person 2
- Day 3: Mandalay Bay Person 1
- Day 4: Mandalay Bay Person 2
You might run into a weekend or dates with higher rates, but considering you are getting $150 in credit each time plus upgrades and other perks at very decent hotels means this is a great deal. Yes, you are going to be paying cash, but you’ll get the opportunity to enjoy some restaurants and splurge a little. Not for everyone, but a great deal nonetheless. Don’t forget you should receive Hyatt credit for these stays as well which could change the value proposition for some of you.
Other Dates?
So what if you aren’t visiting in December during one of the slowest times of the year? Well this program and these strategies should still apply. I always recommend checking direct prices of course, but just as you saw in this example, it is often not much more expensive to book with Chase LHRC where you get a lot of benefits.
Conclusion
Hotel hopping is fun in Vegas and with Chase Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection it can be quite lucrative as well. If you like to stay in nice hotels and get paid handsomely (in credits) to do it then this might be for you. All you need is a Chase card and an imagination.
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Would I earn 4 Hyatt points if I paid with a WOH card? Or would 3 UR (which I would transfer to a Hyatt account) from Chase Ink Preferred be the best I could do?
3 UR would be the best you could do. Hyatt does not earn bonus points at MGM properties even though they are partners. Great question though (that I had to look up the answer for) 🙂
Perhaps angles at Caesars properties? Many have status matched to Diamond and can have resort fees waived.
Caesar’s will only waive the RF for Diamond if you book direct.
@kimbra was wondering same thing and whether the other person was an AU on your card or had separate account.
2nd reservation can be AU card. After checkin, go back to desk, show player’s card and ask for resort fees to be waived. Then ask to have 2nd reservation linked. They will tell you to come back next morning to have new keys issued. Go back next morning, they will close out the 1st folio and issue new keys for same room. *Hopefully you had a nice upgrade on 1st night. If asked to pay a little extra for that 1st night upgrade, may be worth it knowing you will get fees waived and 2nd night for the better suite at no additional cost.
When doing 2 player mode do you ask to link the reservations and stay in the same room? Is this usually honored?
CLC Card – CSR & Ritz only?
I did this at Mandalay Bay. Your calculation is based on using a $150 food credit in a one night stay. To do that you are really going to have to eat, a lot. No walking over to Shake Shack.
Assuming you were by yourself it could be hard to do, although a nice steak and a glass of wine could easily get close to $100 for one person. I know when I have done these deals though the $100 gets my wife and I a decent dinner and the other credit is for breakfast. It ends up being a nice stay and we enjoy the credit.
A steakhouse in Vegas is gonna run most people at least $150 if dining for two. If you don’t wanna go the fine dining route you could still get a nice lunch and a good dinner as well.
When booking through Chase, do you earn Tier Credits with Mlife? I know with regular booking websites you don’t earn TCs for the room rate, but I don’t know how it works using this method.
Also note that you previously received a elevated discount if you were Gold, Plat, or Noir booking a non-comp’d room but that perk has been removed and all Mlife members receive a flat 10% discount over the rack rate.
From what others have told me they have had success getting credit when booking through Chase. They act as a regular travel agent similar to Amex FHR.
Should be a heads up to those who don’t frequent LV often but a lot of shows are usually closed around the holidays. A good number of restaurants tend to close down as well.